Following up yesterday's release of the Catalyst 11.10 beta package, AMD has made the final version of the Catalyst 11.9 package available for users of 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7, Vista, and XP. As with the previous version of the package, most desktop and laptop DirectX 10 and 11 GPUs are supported, but Windows 7 users should note that this package requires Service Pack 1 to be installed.

The new drivers enable 3D support via DisplayPort - AMD specifically mentions the Samsung 750 and 950 displays as being supported. There are no particular performance enhancements listed for any games, though hanging and crashing issues in several games have been resolved (especially under Windows 7).

The new drivers can be downloaded from AMD's web site, through the Catalyst software's automatic updater, or via Steam. The final version of the 11.10 drivers will replace the 11.9 drivers when they're made available next month.

Often hotfix releases are a hodgepodge of optimizations specific to the game(s) being "fixed" (in this case, BF3 beta) and the rest may or may not be up-to-date. I wound't be surprised if there are some performance improvements relative to the hotfix with the official 11.9 release, but most should be minuscule.Reply

According to the latest August 2011 Steam Survey, 21% of DX10/DX11 GPU owners actually use Windows XP. This is presumably mainly the consumer market. I wouldn't be surprised if in the corporate market the majority of even new computers are still Windows XP. Dropping Windows XP driver support would orphan a significant portion of your user-base. And probably eliminate AMD GPUs from being an option for many new corporate purchases. Windows XP support is legitimately maintained because the demand is still there.Reply

before the 11.9 drivers my desktop and everything was crystal clear. now the scaling is all messed up and everything is blurry at 1080p. i have yet to figure out a way to fix this. its very annoying, especially for my design and modeling classes.

turns out if i change the pixel format in CCC to RGB 4:4:4 (full RGB) everything is clear again. i hit apply and about 15 seconds later it switches back to the previous format which is blurry again. weird. i have never encountered this before.Reply